What Restructuring One Of The Most Complex Garments Taught Me About Product Design

I was simply a woman who was annoyed with the experience I had choosing and wearing a bra every day.

Luckily, I met someone who knew how to actually design one. That was Ra'el Cohen, our current Chief Creative Officer at ThirdLove. Ra'el and I set out together to design a better bra, which is more complicated than most people imagine.

Our first order of business was solving the issues we had with the T-shirt bra — the one women rely on every day. These are supposed to be really comfortable, and hopefully wear really well. But most designs don't meet that standard.

Our goal was to create a product that could live up to consumers' expectations.

When I think about how far we've come, it's hard to believe we were able to create the product we had envisioned. It didn't always seem like we'd be successful on this journey.

The design process was sometimes frustrating, often exhausting, and always at the forefront of our minds.

Here's what we learned about what it takes to design a product during those early years:

The process is manual and detailed — and it's easy to make mistakes.

One of our immediate goals was to use the highest-quality materials for our bras.

From the foam and underwire to the hook and elastic strap, we wanted everything to be top-notch. We wanted to do things differently than the industry standards.

Easy enough, right? Just order the best materials and have someone put them together for you.

Of course, it wasn't that simple. Our original manufacturing partner was very focused on using the lowest cost components rather than the highest-quality. And that meant I had to jump in and become deeply involved in our ordering and manufacturing.

I used to personally place all the purchase orders for every single piece of material that went into our bras.

It was exhausting. One night, I happened to be ordering the cotton for a piece of our underwear. It was at the end of a long day during a time when every day was long. And somehow, I messed up my division while calculating the cotton we needed.

Instead of ordering the one roll of cotton we needed, I ordered 40.

The material was worth over $50,000, and our manufacturer was baffled when it showed up on the doorstep of the factory. Once we realized what had happened, there was nothing we could do. And this was pre-launch. We had no customers or buyers for this cotton.

It's easier to look back on it now and laugh, but it was devastating at the time.

Designing a new — and better — product is not easy. It's demanding, and executing on your vision will likely entail long hours and at least a few mistakes along the way.

But if you know your design is better than what consumers have to choose from, your effort will be worthwhile.

So many people will say "no" to an innovative product, but you have to fight for it.

It can be difficult to find partners who share your vision.

Even the quality of the materials was a sticking point for our first manufacturer, and we had much bigger plans than that.

For instance, offering half cup sizes for women was one of the ways we wanted to provide something that was really needed in the market. But it wasn't easy to find a manufacturer who would actually build them for us. Everyone we talked to thought it was crazy.

They said it would cost too much money. That it was too complicated. That it was a mistake. But we continued pushing and kept looking until we found someone who would make the sizes.

Innovation is scary. It's particularly scary for a manufacturer because they're not trying to be "the next" anything.

They're just want to stay in business. If you tell them you want to make something complicated or different, it's actually in their best interest to tell you not to do it.

So you have to fight for it. If you believe in your design and want to see it become a real product, then you can't let anyone stop you from following through. You have to persevere until you find someone who believes in you enough to take the risk.

If you've done the market research, realize there's a problem, and feel confident you can design the solution, then you have to push forward no matter what obstacles are in your way.